Category: News

In what would arguably be the first optimistic news for Saab faithful out of General Motors in some time, Reuters is reporting that GM has extended its December 31 bidding deadline for the 60 year-old Swedish marque – a move that will actually trigger the restart of some of the company’s production lines next month.

Reuters indicates Spyker Cars’ chief executive Victor Muller (head of the company believed to be in the lead position in the bidding war) has let slip that GM has extended the deadline until January 7, and Muller reportedly believes that there are still several parties involved in the bidding process.

Adding credence to Muller’s statement is word that Saab spokesman Eric Geers has been quoted as saying that Saab’s production lines will fire up on the new 9-5 sedan (above) and the 9-3 convertible: “We have the orders and we have to deliver them as usual. We also have the orders for the 9-3 and others. The factory has to continue again… we are preparing the wind-down process. At the same time we are open to options, to bids that come in. Therefore the deadline has also been dropped.”

Looks like industry analysts and Saab loyalists will have to wait until early next year for a conclusion to the sales saga. Will there be cheers and gears in 2010, or jeers and sneers? We’re not sure yet, but once the dust settles, we’re looking forward to someone chronicling this whole sordid affair in a nice, thick book. Thanks for the tip, Ed!

[Source: Reuters]

Breaking: GM reportedly extends bidding deadline for Saab, production to restart? originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 30 Dec 2009 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Did you know that TODAY co-hosts Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira share the same birthday? Mer has the day off, but The Godfather’s Abe Vigoda — a Lauer deadringer — stopped by to wish Matt a most Happy Birthday.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Last weekend on “Meet the Press,” David Gregory’s guests talked about the next decade in job creation. The general consensus seemed to be: We need to create new sustainable sectors to place the millions of displaced workers of this recession. Take a look at this exchange:

MR. GREGORY: What, what does a jobs picture look
like, even when they start returning?

MS. [ANDREA] MITCHELL: The jobs will, first of all, not be the same kind of jobs, and that links to both immigration and to education.

Actually, tomorrow’s jobs picture looks a lot like today’s.

This is basically the story of two graphs. In the first graph, we learn
about the last ten years. While health care, education and government
payrolls grew over the last ten years, the rest of the jobs market
shrank.

In the second graph, we glimpse the next ten years.
This is a graph from the Bureau of Labor Statistics projected the largest growing
service-providing industries. Two of the top three are health care and
education. Government is number six.

The Council of Economic Advisers also drew up ten-year job projections. Health care and education lead their list, too:

What’s
the takeaway? This is job market driven largely by health care,
education and other government supported industries. It’s possible that
some industry will take off unexpectedly in the next ten years, the
same way the Internet blossomed in the late ’90s. But it’s equally, if
not more, likely that the next few years will look terribly familiar in
terms of job creation. I sympathize with Mitchell’s hope for new
sustainable industries to drive employment in the next ten years. But
it’s worth pointing out that the BLS and CEA aren’t holding their
breath.

Steam has been running a huge sale the last few days, (Bioshock for $5, oh yes) but a Reddit user is urging gamers to look past the six headline titles and to indie games. He’s right. There are a bunch of games I’ve never heard of for only a few dollars right now. If you’re like me and already played-through MW2, Borderlands, Batman, and L4D2, spend $10 and pick up a couple of these. I don’t know which ones are any good, but take a chance and you might get a winner — and it makes the gaming gods smile that you’re helping indie developers. Feel free to drop recommendations in the comments after the jump.

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The motorcycle industry rode on an extremely rough road in 2009, but we must say the road certainly was not short on surprises for all two-wheeled fans out there. We’ve had it all this year: ups and downs, amazing innovations and striking concepts. Despite the tough economy and slow sales, most motorcycle manufacturers somehow managed to reach the surface and take a deep breath before getting back to swim in the troubled waters of the global financial crisis.

INDUSTRY – The Two-… (read more)

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, R-Calif., has announced the first comprehensive list of 244 proposed renewable energy projects that could produce up to almost 70,000 MW of clean energy annually, building on California’s aggressive renewable energy goals …

Filed under: Internet Tools, iPhone, App Store

LinkedIn has always seemed like the “me too” of social networks, in my mind. They started out as a site more about careers and job networking, but with the big growth of Facebook the last two years, it seems like they’re working as hard as they can just to keep up with what’s going on over there. And that seems to be the case with their updated iPhone app as well, just released on the App Store [iTunes link, free]. There’s a lot of new features, but as TechCrunch’s MG Sielger points out, they’re very similar to what’s already in the great Facebook app: a revamped UI, the ability to comment on status updates, share pictures, and so on.

The power of LinkedIn, if you ask me, is in its demographic — Facebook is where I share with my family and friends, and LinkedIn seems to be where I have connected with coworkers and colleagues. And they hint at that a little bit in this release: there’s a feature where you can share contacts across Bluetooth, which seems like a good idea for the upcoming convention season (sounds like the same kind of functionality as Bump). But most of this stuff is just more “me, too.” Instead of sharing photos and status updates with my work acquaintances, how about some more functionality exclusive to just them?

Of course, even more than demographics, the thing that matters most about social networks is how many contacts you actually have on them. If you’re a big LinkedIn fan and have a huge network in there, you’ll definitely want to get this update right away.

TUAWLinkedIn app releases version 3.0 for the iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 30 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Spinvox, the London company that lets you translate your voice into text messages, could announce its sale as soon as today, according to a source close to the company who requested anonymity.

We’ve called Spinvox for official comment. We reached Simon Crowfoot, the company’s strategic business development director, but he said he was unaware of any details, and referred us to the company’s chief executive, who has not yet responded.

The rumored sale comes at a time when the company is struggling for survival, and as a chorus of competitors surround it.

Rumors of Spinvox sale first arose earlier this month — when it leaked that the company was in negotiations with the Burlington, Mass., based speech-recognition giant Nuance Communications. Spinvox needs to find some sort of exit of its financial predicament: It owes $47 million (£30 million) in debt to one of its investors, which was due to be paid back earlier this month. The company got a reprieve on that commitment until the end of January, and earlier rumors had suggested the company was trying to announce a sale by Christmas.

In its story two weeks ago, London’s Sunday Times had said the company was looking to sell to Nuance for about $150 million (or £92m). But it’s possible that Nuance has dragged out the talks, in order to push for a lower price. After all, that’s a high price to pay for a company that is still losing money, is reportedly only making only $7 million in revenue, and has run out of cash reserves. BBC reported that Nuance is interested in the Spinvox’s contracts with a international telecoms operators, such as Telefonica in South America and Telstra of Australia.

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(Editor’s note: John Ovrom is founder and CEO of Exit and Answers, a social community for entrepreneurs looking to sell their company. He submitted this story to VentureBeat.)

As entrepreneurs evaluate their goals and objectives for the upcoming year, many may decide that it’s time to execute their exit strategy and sell their business. While the process is never an easy one, they’re going to have a slightly easier time of it than those who put up the ‘for sale’ sign in 2009.

I expect business valuations, which took a hit over the last couple of years, to level out or get a little better next year.  A business is often valued at a specific multiplier of the company’s annual gross revenue and/or the gross profit.  Over the last couple of years this trend has been going down, so the business values have followed.

Multipliers have fallen 25- to 50 percent over the past two years ago in many industries and I think they’ve finally hit bottom. This will prove a catalyst for the many people who have been watching and waiting for the economy to bottom out.

Most business owners that I’ve spoken with expect their revenues to be flat or better in 2010.  That’s notably different than last year’s sentiment – and it’s another indicator the bottom may be near.  As revenue starts to improve and the deep cuts entrepreneurs have made start to show profit, buyers will be forced off of the sidelines.

The trick is going to be financing. Bankers I’ve spoken with expect to see more lending from their institutions in 2010.  They’ll have to keep it in their portfolio, though, as the secondary market is still very dry.  As a result, they may be loaning more, but it won’t be close to the levels of recent years – meaning it will be slightly better for institutional financing, but still tough.

Mergers and acquisitions will come into play next year as the successful companies start to expand and take advantage of the relatively cheap open market.  They are still very protective of their cash, but if you are willing to take stock or seller financing in order to make the deal happen, there are some businesses that are once again fishing for deals.  Look for this area as one of the chief growth areas of 2010.

Similarly, the franchise business market looks set to expand.  There are a lot of highly qualified people without jobs that are thinking about starting a business – and buying an existing business or franchise has a much higher success rate than opening one from scratch. This is where they are looking. Note that while activity in this area has picked up, people are looking hard for deals. It’s still very much a buyer’s market.

While the market for selling your business in 2010 will be better, it won’t be exponentially so.  We’re still several years away from the glory days of 2007.

The key to selling your business will be showing that it is thriving and has excess operational cash flow that can pay for the financing. In the meantime, continue to work on making your start-up more valuable – and be ready to jump when the right offer comes in.

Original photo by TheTruthAbout… via Flickr

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Considering we’re talking about a mass produced car from 1988, the price tag of $250,000 seems to be truly staggering. After hearing about the car model and the price, one question comes to mind: what’s so special about this car?

Well, the 6-Series has got new rims, a lot of bodywork, a special bodykit, a spectacular leather interior and a complete mechanical overhauling which includes an engine swap. The car is now powered by a 315 hp 3.5-liter inline six-cylinder engine from the… (read more)

by Grist

 

The way of all cuisine? This is a guest post by David Gumpert, author of the Raw Milk Revolution.

——————-

When a good Jewish mother or grandmother knows she’s going to have a big group of special guests, she shifts into high gear to prepare meals. (Yes, I’m definitely stereotyping here, but bear with me.) She phones her butcher for the best cuts of meats.  She visits her vegetable market for the freshest veggies and fruits.  She buys the best eggs and cream cheese and lox and bagels she can find. And, for sure, she begins baking her richest and most delectable desserts.

When Hazon, a Jewish environmental organization, began planning its annual food conference   last spring, to be held at Asilomar overlooking the Pacific near Monterey, over Christmas (a very quiet time for most Jews), it made Tracy Lerman of Santa Cruz-based Organic Farming Research Foundation   its Jewish mother in charge of procuring the best food possible.

“My role was to source food from organic and sustainable farms,” she recounted to a group of attendees on Saturday, as she attempted to provide a behind-the-scenes sense of her challenges. “I have a lot of contacts with local farms” in Northern California.

“We spent a lot of time trying to get farmers to donate food … For example, we got 25 dozen of the best eggs in the country,” she recounted.

There was just one problem when she had completed her work on the eggs: “You are not eating any of those eggs.”

It was the same story for a farm prepared to donate 500 pounds each of apples and cabbage, another farm wanting to donate 200 pounds of butternut squash, another with 40 pounds of sugar pie pumpkins, and another with 325 pounds of fresh trout, among others. All told, nine farms had their donations rejected. And maybe saddest of all, there were dozens of pasture-raised chickens, slaughtered under kosher supervision, which a group of Hazon conference attendees hand plucked the feathers out of at a nearby farm, as required under kosher rules. They were to be the centerpieces of a Friday evening Sabbath dinner. Rejected, and in their place, kosher chickens provided by a factory-farming type business.

The problem was food safety, or more precisely, the food safety regulations of the mega corporation that runs Asilomar’s food service-ARAMARK . Its corporate food safety regulations require that the company inspect each provider of food being served at Asilomar, to determine whether it has a HACCP plan (for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points), traceback records (to determine where all ingredients originate), a certain level of insurance, and other such “credentials.”

The rules are not unlike those close to being enacted by Congress under new federal food safety legislation. They put the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in charge of verifying the HACCP plans that will be required of all food producers in the U.S., down to the smallest maker of artisan cheeses and jams and jellies. Some farms will be caught up in the new web as well, if they are judged to be involved in processing and packaging.

For both ARAMARK and the U.S. government, the underlying driver in all this is fear—as in fear of tainted ground beef, spinach, peanut butter, peppers, and all the other foods that have been involved in recalls and illness over the past few years. Not surprisingly, small sustainable producers haven’t been implicated in any of these recalls, and are rarely sources of food-borne illness, but that doesn’t matter in the new climate of fear and concern about being sued.

Here’s how Jack Burkam, the Resident District Manager for ARAMARK at Asilomar, put it to attendees as the same panel discussion at which Tracy Lerman gave her Jewish mother explanation of the situation: “As a company that feeds as many as 1,200 at a sitting, you need to know the sources of the food you are getting…It’s a dilemma for us and everyone involved in the business. Our brand is known for food and we are known for safety.”

To purchase from “unknown sources” (even those Tracy Lerman could attest to) “is a huge risk. It’s a risk not many companies can take” in the current fear-based food-safety climate.

He added: “We source from as many local sources as possible. It’s a complicated process. We have controls that keep us from obtaining large numbers of items from sources we don’t know.”

So, one might say, better to be safe than sorry. But the reality is that none of the nine farms that had its products rejected had any known history of problems with unsafe products.

Still and all, you might say, the decision of whether they want to comply with all ARAMARK’s regulations is up to the companies. There are plenty of markets out there that don’t require HACCP plans and other such official niceties.

But before long—possibly a matter of several weeks or months, when Congress is expected to pass major food safety legislation, which President Obama has promised to sign—the choice option will disappear, since all food processors (the distinction between farmer and processor can become dicey, since washing and packing certain foods on a farm can be considered processing) will need to comply with regulations much like ARAMARK’s. HACCP plans, frequent records inspections, and very tough penalties (possibly $10,000 a day) for being judged not in compliance will go into effect, administered by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

How might life be different once the new food safety legislation becomes law? Well, if the experiences of the 600-plus attendees at the Hazon Food Conference is any indication, we could lose access to access to some significant number of smaller producers. The nine producers rejected by Aramark were nearly half of the nineteen that wanted to donate food (ten were accepted by Aramark).

And as far as food quality and variety are concerned, let’s just say that a good Jewish mother or grandmother would not have been happy about the unevenness of the meals. For example, ARAMARK ran out of main courses at the first dinner (an uninspired mix of tofu and green beans)—latecomers wound up with an even less inspired plate of barley and canned mushrooms. Similarly, a breakfast of lox and bagels was missing the bagels—many attendees were clearly unhappy with the rice crackers that substituted…and the lox ran out after about 20 per centof the guests had been served—the rest had to settle for smoked trout.

The chicken at the Friday evening Sabbath dinner was okay, but certainly not nearly as good as the local pastured chickens would have been. Interestingly, many of the chicken thighs and legs were undercooked, which is a great way to spread salmonella. And let’s just say the chocolate pudding dessert would have embarrassed moms of all religions—it was grainy and had attendees making some serious sour faces. Granted, making pudding without milk or cream is a challenge (no dairy products are allowed to be served with meat at kosher meals), but one can ask in response whether pudding was the best choice.

There were a few excellent meals. One lunch salad of wild salmon and greens was very well done, as was a breakfast of French toast stuffed with apples and blueberries.

But by and large, attendees were disappointed that a foodie conference’s food would be so ordinary and institutional. The last day’s lunch plate of a scoop of mashed potatoes next to a scoop of rice with lentils seemed to put an exclamation mark on the frustrations of trying to serve local produce when half your vendors are disqualified under arbitrary safety regs. As a rabbinical student put it to me: “It all had a very corporate feel to it.”

As the food safety zealots take over, our food options in any number of places could have much more of a corporate feel.

 

Related Links:

Lessons on the food system from the ammonia-hamburger fiasco

Ammonia-treated burgers, tainted with E. coli!

Uh-oh: Tamiflu-resistant swine flu rears up in the U.S., U.K.

News:

Pfizer’s epilepsy drug Lyrica was recently rejected by the FDA as a treatment option for generalized anxiety disorder.

The FDA claims that there is not enough data to support the unlabeled use of Lyrica.

Pfizer isn’t happy and claims that this drug could help anxiety sufferers.

CLICK HERE to read the full story.

Editor’s Note:

Now, is it just me or does something seem wrong here?  It seems like anxiety disorder always gets the short end of the stick when it comes to drugs.

You always hear about drugs meant for depression or seizures being handed down to the anxious.  Granted, there have been drugs designed for anxiety disorder, but this second hand stuff seems to happen a lot to us.

This isn’t always bad either because if it works, it works I guess.  But it’s a damn shame that anxiety suffers don’t have marathons, 5k’s, and other fund raisers to raise money to put this baby to bed like other health conditions do.  Is it because anxiety doesn’t make people dead?  Who knows?

I would hope that it’s the peoples’ welfare really at the heart of their crossover efforts, but I doubt it.

What are your thoughts?

Legg Mason’s Bill Miller is at it again this year (up 43%) and he is talking about what he thinks is in store for 2010.

Once known as maybe the best mutual fund manager in the world, Miller was often referred to as the guy who beat the S&P 500 for 15 years straight, from 1991 to 2005.

Now he’s known as the former guru that from 2006-2008, bet that people were just overreacting and continued buying up shares of AIG, Wachovia, Freddie Mac, and Bear Stearns.

Miller’s Value Trust fund lost a devastating near 60% in 2008.

This year, like many, he is doing a lot better. Bloomberg’s Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam spoke with Miller about his market forecast for 2010.

He says better prospects for the economy and lower potential returns in the fixed-income markets will lure investors back into stock funds in 2010… The S&P 500 will increase at least 15% and economic growth of 4% is “very doable.”

In contrast, El-Erian doesn’t think GDP will increase more than 2% for years to come.

Read more about Miller on Bloomberg.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• The 60-Second Guide To Everything You Need To Know About Oil, Gold, Bonds, China, And Stocks In 2010
• Chinese Demand Will Keep The Boom Going For Copper And Fertilizer In 2010
• MF Global: A Jobless Recovery, Sovereign Debt Risks, And The "Apex" Of US Liberalism In 2010

Sounds like the FDA is about to get tougher on new medical devices: The acting director of the agency’s device division tells the WSJ and New York Times that stricter criteria for approval are on the way.

His comments come as a couple new journal articles suggest many devices are approved based on studies that lack rigor.

One article, published in JAMA, looked at cardiovascular devices that were approved by the FDA between 2000 and 2007 and were subject to the agency’s most stringent level of scrutiny for devices. Most of the approvals were based on a single study. Less than a third of the studies were randomized. And only about half of the primary measures in the studies were compared with outcomes from control groups. The authors, based at UC San Francisco, found that FDA approval was “often based on studies that lack adequate strength and may be prone to bias.”

The other article, published in the American Journal of Therapeutics, also looked at the approval of cardiovascular devices subject to a high level of scrutiny. In 40% of the studies used as the basis for FDA approval, key safety measures weren’t “high quality,” according to that paper, which was co-authored by an FDA scientist. In 18% of the studies, key measures of effectiveness weren’t high quality, the article found.

An official at AdvaMed, the device industry trade group, told the WSJ that the FDA spends 1,200 hours reviewing each device application, and companies submit large amounts of data before approval is granted. The official also said that the authors of the JAMA study didn’t have access to all of the data companies submitted to the FDA.

The FDA may soon start pushing drug makers to use more sharply defined targets to measure success, follow patients more closely and work more closely with the agency in setting study goals, according to the WSJ and NYT.

Photo by CarbonNYC via Flickr

You’re the only star in heaven
You’re the only star that shines
You’re the only star in heaven
Now that only star is mine
– Frankie Goes to Hollywood

Snuggler’s lament

These days of northern winter seem endless. It’s been brutally cold here in Boulder, causing much snuggling at night, both between humans and with Canises Major and Minor. Snuggling is fun, of course, but also useful: body heat shared is body heat doubled.

After a while it can get too hot, and even Mrs. BA with her ice cold feet will move away to cool off a bit. When that happens, of course, my mind turns to matters scientific. Our bodies generate a lot of heat. And with the Sun making only a desultory appearance every day, I was thinking recently about the energy generated by the Sun, versus that emitted by humans. I remember reading once that if you compare the heat coming a single square centimeter from the Sun to the same area on a human being, you’d find we actually put out more energy! As a skeptic I’m used to analyzing such claims; as a scientist I have the mad math skillz to work out the numbers; and as a communicator, I have the soapbox upon which I can talk about the whole thing.

So let’s get to it. Are humans more energetic than the Sun?

Yar, thar be math below, and plenty of it. Be ye fairly warned, says I.

Glowing places

As it happens, the math isn’t that hard. Objects that are warm (really, anything warmer than absolute zero) have a characteristic way they emit energy, called black body radiation. Both humans and the Sun are pretty close to being such radiators, and it’s not too bad to just assume they’re blackbodies. There’s a simple equation to calculate the amount of energy emitted per second, called the luminosity:

Luminosity = area of object x σ x temperature⁴

where σ, the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, is just a number (if you wanna check my math, it’s 5.67 x 10^-5 erg cm^-2 s^-1 K^-4, and K is Kelvins, the unit of temperature). That equation makes sense: at a given temperature, a bigger object will emit more energy. And if two objects are the same size, the hotter one will give off more energy (in other words, and to be a bit more vernacular, it’ll be brighter).

The Sun is big, so even if it were colder than a human it would win that fight! So we want to compare apples to apples here, taking one square centimeter of each and seeing who wins. That means we want the luminosity divided by the area, giving us the energy emitted per square centimeter in one second. Rearranging, we get

Luminosity / area = σ x temperature⁴

Hey, wait a sec! This makes something clear right away: if you want to compare the energy emitted per square centimeter from any two objects, all that matters is their temperatures. The hotter one wins.

That means the story I read — that humans emit more per square cm than the Sun — is wrong. The Sun is a lot hotter than a human, so it emits vastly more energy than a person does! In fact, it’s the ratio of the temperatures raised to the 4th power. The Sun’s temperature is 5780 Kelvins, and a human is 310 Kelvins. Plugging and chugging shows that the Sun gives off a whopping 121,000 times as much energy per square centimeter as a person does!

Yegads. And the Sun is a whole lot bigger. If you’re not careful, you may get the impression the Sun gives off quite a bit of energy.

Pump up the volume

A cubic Sun.

Anyway, far be it from me to simply say the story is wrong and drop it. There’s more science here! Instead of using the area, what about the volume? In other words, assume both a human and the Sun have the same temperature throughout (I mean, every chunk of a human is 310K, and the Sun is 5780 K). Would a cubic centimeter of the Sun outshine a cubic centimeter of human?

This is a little bit tougher to calculate. We need the total luminosity of the Sun and its volume, and the same for a human. For the Sun that bit’s actually easy, since we just use that luminosity equation above (knowing the Sun’s area is 6.1 x 10²² square centimeters, which I leave up to you to calculate if you want). The Sun’s energy emitted per second is then about 4 x 10³³ ergs/second, where an erg is just a unit of energy astronomers like to use. It’s a small unit, but 4,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of them is still a lot.

What about a human? Well, we need the area of a human to plug into the equation to get the luminosity, and we’ll have to estimate that. Let’s use me as an example, and assume I’m a big rectangular solid, like a shoebox (or a monolith). I’m 177 cm tall, about 50 cm across, and about 15 cm deep. That gives me an area of very roughly 25,000 square centimeters. That’s an estimate, but good enough — it won’t matter if I’m off by a factor of two either way.

Plugging away, I get that my luminosity is then 1.3 x 10¹⁰ ergs/sec. That’s a lot smaller than the Sun. But then, I’m not all that hot^*.

I am your density

OK, almost there! All we need to do now is divide those numbers by the respective volumes and compare them. The Sun’s volume is 1.4 x 10³³ cubic centimeters. That means that each cubic centimeter gives off 4 x 10³³ ergs/second / 1.4 x 10³³ cc = 2.8 ergs/second/cc. So every second, each cc of the Sun emits 2.8 ergs. OK then. What about me?

How I know humans and water have the same density.

My volume is easy to estimate: I know humans are the same density as water, which is 1 gram/cc. I also know my mass is about 75,000 grams, so my volume must be 75,000 cc! Easy peasy.

Finally, dividing my luminosity by my volume yields 170,000 ergs/sec/cc.

Hey, wait a sec! That means not only am I brighter than the Sun, I’m a lot brighter! About 60,000 times brighter!

Make a gas of U and ME

So in that sense, the legend is right. If you want to think of it this way, a cubic centimeter of human gives off a lot more energy than the same volume of the Sun does!

But hold on there. Is this really a fair statement?

Well, not really. First, there are a whole lot more cubic centimeters in the Sun (about 10²⁸ times as many, or ten billion billion billion times as many), so when you divide by such a big number the energy per cc for the Sun drops drastically. So even if we say, sure, humans are more luminous per cubic centimeter, it’s best not to get cocky. The Sun can still vaporize us with lots of cubic centimeters left to spare.

Second, remember the assumption I made, that the Sun has the same temperature everywhere? That’s not even close to being true. In fact, it’s whoppingly untrue. The core of the Sun is 15 million Kelvins hot, so each cc there is blasting out vast amounts of energy: about 5 quadrillion times what a cc of human flesh does. But outside of that region the Sun is much cooler, and each cc doesn’t contribute nearly as much. Over the entire Sun, that dilutes the amount of energy per cc quite a bit. Averaging over the volume of the entire Sun is not a great way to think about it, and makes comparisons difficult, if not really meaningless.

Like this exercise has any profound, deeper truths to it in the first place. Actually, it’s just an excuse to have some fun and do some mental gymnastics. And, in the end, it really comes down to this: the Sun is bright, and we are not.

But, you knew that. Of course, some humans are hotter than others. But I’m not sure I can do the math for that.

Tip o’ the pound of flesh to BABloggee Brad Stacey.

---

^* You can take my word for it, or ask Mrs. BA. She’ll be honest, but her feet lie!

Swimmer image from dionhinchcliffe’s Flickr photostream.

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Filed under: Marketing/Advertising, Hyundai

Hyundai won several awards for its 2009 marketing efforts, in large part on the basis of its Hyundai Assurance program. The program began as a way to get reluctant customers back into showrooms to at least consider buying a new car in spite of the fact that many people were justifiably terrified of losing their jobs. By promising to take back a car if a customer lost their income, they managed to keep sales going while other companies were tanking.

That program has been extended to at least the end of 2010 and Hyundai is now adding free roadside assistance to the mix. The Korean automaker has already been offering a fully transferable five year full vehicle warranty and will now offer help to customers who can’t make it back to the dealership. The program offers the usual suite of assistance that you would get from AAA including lockout aid, flat tire replacement, towing, jump starts and bringing you some gas if you run out. The roadside assistance is free for five years.

[Source: Hyundai]

Continue reading Hyundai extends and expands Assurance program for 2010

Hyundai extends and expands Assurance program for 2010 originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 30 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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No, that’s not red-eye reduction fail that’s a Sharingan. Thanks to the handiwork of Nai Chara Naruto Shippuden (Character Style Naruto Shippuden), a Naruto photo editing app coming to DSiWare, you can have the eyes that

Great news for current and future HTC HD2 owners!  HTC has confirmed, via their official Russian twitter channel, that the HTC HD2 will be getting an official Windows Mobile 7 upgrade.

While in some ways this is not surprising, considering the specs of the device, the way HTC Touch HD owners were treated recently with an upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.5 suggested quite the opposite.

Hopefully the company plan to stick to this promise (even if only made over twitter), giving Windows Mobile fans yet another reason to buy the device.

Via Pocketnow.com

Web Strategy Survey

View more presentations from Jeremiah Owyang.

Above: See the details of the survey results, due to heavy data, it’s best when put into ‘full screen’ mode, the fourth icon on bottom.

To me, this blog belongs as much to the community in which I serve as it does to me, as such, it’s important to find out who the readers are and what they want, to learn about previous efforts, see 2008’s results. The goals of this survey are simple 1) Find out who the readers are, 2) Find out if they are they influenced by this blog, and how, 3) How this blog can improve year-over year. With a sample size of nearly 200 respondents, some of the key findings from this survey were:

1. Overall, Readers Were Satisfied: Overall, respondents were pleased with the blog, and 47% rated it a “10/10″ in recommending it to others when asked “would you recommend this blog to a friend or colleague”, and 54% read more than half the posts, and over one-third shares it monthly with others (slides 3, 4, 5)
2. Many are Buyers at Corporate: 59% of respondents said they are buyers,  28% of respondents have budgets $100k-$1 million (although one-fifth do not hold budget), and over a quarter work at enterprise class companies with over half of respondents in the United States (slides 10, 14, 18, 19).
3. Some are Influenced By Blog: Over one-third of respondents said this blog strongly informs their actions at work, but it was nearly split between influence in their buying process, with 40% agreeing, and 39% disagreeing.  (slide 6).  Read more from Edelman’s Analyst Relations specialist, Jonny Bentwood on his take of this data.
4. Sophistication of Social and Mobile at Work Varies: 39% of respondents said their company was intermediate when it came to social strategy, and 43% said their novice when it comes to mobile strategy. (slide 20, 21)
5. Identified Many Areas for This Blog to Improve: There was a large request for adding more case studies, and interviews with thought leaders in the space, and a variety of comments in the open-ended section that I’m all taking to heart. (slide 8, and qualitative answers)

You can read the qualitative answers on a separate page, in case you want to understand why they read this blog, and what they want to see improved.

A few notes on this survey.  I’m not sure this is truly representative of all readers, it’s likely those that are more engaged, and are willing to spend time filling out the survey.  While some research firms take data samples from smaller numbers, this is only 195 of respondents, although there are far more readers than that.

If you want to influence the readers of this blog, it’s simple.  Be part of the ongoing conversation (not be pitchy) by leaving comments and demonstrating your knowledge and expertise.  Also, you can schedule a briefing with me, but I’ll have to admit up front, it’s been hard getting on my cal as we just launched this new company.  I’m figuring out ways to make briefings easier, such as blocking out Friday mornings, using web based forms to collect more information up front.

Thanks to the folks who took the time to answer the 20 question survey, I read every response, and am constantly trying to improve this blog. Here’s to making this blog even better in 2010!